Will Moyes ever get the chance to fulfill his potential?

David Moyes has rescued Everton from relegation and got them into Europe, but if he is to advance in the managerial ranks he needs to win a trophy. Photograph: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

Managers have two ladders to scale. One leads his team up the table and the other, all being well, should allow his career to reach the heights. Illogically, the ascent of a manager often looks more taxing than that of his team. Major clubs, in ­particular, are setting such severe criteria when ­filling a vacancy that it is a challenge just to draw up the briefest of shortlists. Someone like David Moyes may never get the ­opportunity to exploit his potential fully.

Given a fairer world, he would achieve all he is capable of at Everton. As it is, he has already made his mark by taking the club to a top-four position in 2005. Moyes seems particularly settled at the moment. He became the highest-paid employee in the club's history when he signed a five-year deal last autumn and by then, with Andrew Johnson sold to Fulham, he had been allowed to spend £15m on Marouane Fellaini. Nonetheless, there is no sense in denying the limitations.

The proposal to relocate the club to a new stadium in Kirkby would add a mere £6m a year to income and even that would depend on drawing a capacity crowd of 50,000 every week. It is a stiff target considering the opposition to leaving their heartland. Circumstances may continue to be unhelpful and, in times gone by, Moyes would have had suitors from richer clubs wooing him.

After all, he has surpassed expectations and collected the Manager of the Year award twice. In the spring of 2002, Moyes inherited a club in danger of relegation. By 2005, they were in the Champions League qualifiers. All the while, his management grew more nuanced. In the early days there were clashes and, for example, Duncan Ferguson was banned from the training ground after one incident in November 2003. It is impossible to imagine Moyes shying away from any challenge even now, but there is evidence everywhere of high morale and unity at Goodison.

Without such traits Everton would not have achieved the two recent draws at Anfield. There is managerial resourcefulness to aid the cause, too. When Yakubu was ruled out until next summer, some at the club paled, but there were others who virtually assumed Moyes would come up with a solution. Hardly anyone would have envisaged Tim Cahill as a striker, but the manager did, even if he may still have been surprised to find the Australian scoring against Liverpool and Arsenal.

Moyes's adult life has been a meticulous preparation and he had started to acquire coaching qualifications when still a young centre-half. There is a single-mindedness and austerity about him, but Everton would not have thrived unless he also understood how to form a bond with his team. In previous decades, he would already have risen higher. Today, Everton go to Old Trafford and it is worth asking if Sir Alex Ferguson would have landed the Manchester United job in the contemporary climate.

While his impact at Aberdeen was extraordinary, that club's triumph in the Cup Winners' Cup final had come in 1983. United still chose him three years later, but such a passage of time might have left Ferguson stranded as an also-ran under modern criteria. For that matter, it is unthinkable under present circumstances that Liverpool would make internal appointments, as they did in allowing Bob Paisley and then Joe Fagan to take charge. Both would win European Cups for the club.

Under current conditions, leading managers are supposed to crackle with a Mourinho-esque charisma that would have seemed preposterous to Paisley or Fagan. In England, recruitment has become an absurdity. Regardless of present difficulties, Liverpool's Rafael Benítez has had a fine career, but it is just as well that he started in Spain. After early failures, the achievement of promotion with Extremadura was followed immediately by relegation. It would be unthinkable for someone in the Premier League to be given a major post just two years later, but Benítez, following a season with Tenerife, seized the chance and thrived at Valencia.

Moyes had better not count on any act of faith to help him if he is ever to reach the elite. In practical terms, he needs to qualify for Europe and linger there. A loss to Villarreal in the 2005‑06 Champions League qualifiers was understandable, but the 5-2 aggregate thumping by Dinamo Bucharest that ensued in the Uefa Cup was shaming. The standards set for aspiring British managers are ludicrously stiff and he probably has to get a trophy on to his CV. Matches such as Wednesday's FA Cup replay with Liverpool at Goodison are the key to his future.

About this article

Kevin McCarra: David Moyes has surpassed expectations at Everton but will he get the chance to fulfill his potential?

This article appeared on p3 of the Sport section of the Guardian
on Friday 30 January 2009.
It was published on
the Guardian website
at 19.09 EST on Friday 30 January 2009.
It was last modified at 19.45 EST on Friday 30 January 2009.
It was first published at 19.05 EST on Friday 30 January 2009.